


the billboard said "the end is near"

by tennisonthesun



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x18, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Lucifer (mentioned) - Freeform, M/M, Mental Health Issues, this could be read as platonic but i like sastiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27682513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tennisonthesun/pseuds/tennisonthesun
Summary: How Sam handled the night the Empty took Castiel.
Relationships: Castiel/Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	the billboard said "the end is near"

**Author's Note:**

> we didn't really get to see anyone react to cas's death like we barely even got dean reacting, so this is my take on tfw (sam specifically) and how they handled the news. they did castiel more dirty than anyone in this show and i refuse to shut up about it and i think sam, dean, and jack would all agree with me but. whatever. also if you saw me projecting no you didn't <3  
> (if you see a grammar mistake lmk because i am posting this with very little sleep)  
> title from i know the end by phoebe bridgers. that part at the end where she starts screaming? you get the idea.

There is little that can compare to the feeling of loss. It’s gripping and painful, it hurts more than a knife in the chest. Sam of all people would know. Loss means staring at walls, seeing people in everything, asking “why?” over and over until your brain is numb. Loss echoes and it’s inescapable. Few knew this better than Sam. 

Loss was no stranger to Sam. It had held his hand since he was a baby and while he sometimes walked without it, it was always nearby. Loss watched and waited for Sam to get too comfortable before it pounced.

For now Loss was waiting in the car. Sam had left it there after the most horrible phone call of his lifetime. The call wasn’t even 24 hours old yet. It had taken six tries before he had even been able to get through to Dean.

“Sam?”

“Dean? Why didn’t you pick up? I have Jack, is everything-”

“Sam. Sam, it’s Cas.”

Sam felt his heart drop to his toes. This had always been coming. Sure, Cas had died before, but it never felt as final as it did this time. Maybe it was the tone in Dean’s voice. Maybe it was Jack sitting in the driver’s seat, a concentrated look on his face, unaware of the tragedy that had commenced. Maybe it was the fact that Sam hadn’t even had a chance to process its inevitability before it was here. Sam understood everything before Dean had a chance to explain. He understood and his body felt bright red.

His breath was shaky when he nodded and hung up the phone. He didn’t want Jack to catch onto something being wrong, so he leaned more intently towards his books and breathed carefully. Breath control was a skill learned by Sam from an early age, a lesson taught to him by Loss itself. Loss held him by the scruff until Jack drove them home. He let Jack and himself in, sent Jack into the kitchen, and collected himself against the wall once Jack was out of sight. Closing his eyes, his hand wandered to his other palm. Pressing there he felt no pain, and with it he felt his composure break. Sam had learned to embrace Loss like an old friend, a constant in his life. Loss waited back in the car and instead Devastation took its place.

Pressing both hands over his mouth he squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as possible and lightly shook his head. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t happen. It was too soon, too sudden, too inevitable, too cliche. He passed Dean on his way to his room. Sam couldn’t bring himself to meet his brother’s eyes and when Dean raised a hand to Sam’s shoulder in comfort, Sam couldn’t help shrugging it off while feeling a hot rush of anger. He wasn’t angry with Dean and Dean understood because he simply dropped his hand and turned around to go to the kitchen. He knew Dean was probably going to make Jack a sandwich, pour him some milk, tell him to wait there. Then he would seek Sam out and they would figure out how they could tell this to Castiel’s son; the boy who had adored him in a way they would never be able to understand. 

So Sam sat in his room. He stared at the wall. The wall Cas had used to lean against while Sam explained the plot of the movie he had just watched. The wall where Cas had smiled and hung his coat, exchanging it for one of Sam’s blankets while Sam had scooted over and patted the bed next to him. The wall they had both sat against that one night in May when Sam decided to tell Cas he loved him. That was years ago, but his sentiment had never changed. Neither had Cas’s.

“I love you too, Sam.”

The wall was driving him crazy, so Sam chose to look elsewhere. The shelves seemed to taunt him, asking him if he would ever put new rocks or postcards on them. Of course he wouldn’t. Those were always gifts from Castiel. His room reeked of Cas. Memories of game nights, movie nights, and the time Sam had taught Castiel what a sleepover was marked the room permanently. Sam wanted so badly to feel like Cas was still with him, in his heart. Maybe Cas would walk through the door right now and claim yet another freak incident kept him alive. Sam begged the door to move for ten minutes but it stayed firmly shut.

Sam had felt Loss's presence acutely before in his life. He had felt the death of Dean, his father, Jess, Amelia, his mother, the list was endless. He had felt the loss of Cas before, but never as acutely as now. It felt final this time. The final straw, the final time Cas would die. 

Sam felt someone mocking him. Not Chuck, not anyone solid, but someone somewhere was laughing at him. So Sam laughed too. He laughed until he was gasping for air, heaving and tears were dripping from his chin and somewhere between that Dean had come and he hadn’t even noticed. His brother was kneeling in front of him, brushing his hair away from his forehead.

“Sam? Hey, hey, I-” he paused for a moment, figuring out exactly what it was that he did know. Dean didn’t know anything.

“Is this real?” Sam knew it was real, but he wanted confirmation from Dean. He needed confirmation. Just in case. Just in case this was another trick, because this cruelty was just excessive enough that it gave Sam room to doubt.

“Sam…”

“Dean? This happened? This is real?”

Dean’s silence always spoke more than his words ever had. 

“Cas is gone. He’s gone and he’s not coming back. Dean, he’s never coming back.”

“No, hey, man, maybe there’s-”

“He’s  _ gone _ , Dean. There’s nothing, there’s literally nothing left to salvage! Nothing at all!”

He was laughing again and Dean was looking at him like Sam had finally cracked. Well, cracked again. Dean was staring at him, wide-eyed and tearing up like Sam was crazy but Dean, on his own level, understood.

Usually Sam was crazy and Dean would be the one who stood solidly like some kind of statue. Dean had solutions to problems, or at least the composure to find them that Sam didn’t always possess. Dean had generally waited until he was alone to lose it and start panicking. Seeing Dean with tears in his eyes and no answer unnerved Sam more than he cared to admit. There was nothing to fix, it was permanently broken.

Sam’s body felt hot and he pressed hard against his palm again. Hoping, praying, maybe this time he actually was crazy, maybe Dean wasn’t even here, maybe he’d wake up soon and maybe-

“Sam, I’m so sorry.”

Sam took a moment to process this. This moment was critical and final. This moment finalized what Sam already knew to be true and this moment was critical for Dean. If Sam let Dean blame himself, Dean would never be able to come back from that. It would destroy him more than he already was, irreversibly this time, so Sam responded in the only way he knew how.

“It wasn’t your fault. I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t your fault, Dean.”

Dean seemed to pull himself together in the time it took to take a deep breath. He looked to the ceiling and when he looked back at Sam he was back. Dean had a hand on Sam’s shaking knee, steadying it, steadying Sam. He nodded at him, tried to catch Sam’s eyes, but Sam again couldn’t bring himself to look at him. Looking at Dean would be the final straw and Sam wouldn’t be laughing this time. He knew if he looked at Dean he would start crying and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to stop. 

“I’m going. I’m gonna go tell Jack, Sammy. I’ll be in the kitchen, okay?”

Sam nodded and waited for Dean to leave before slowly placing his hands over his mouth. He cried in a way that caused his whole body to shake. Snot was running down his nose and he didn’t care. He cried for minutes that felt like hours, pressing his hands to his mouth so hard he was sure he was giving himself bruises. He refused to make a sound. He already knew Jack and Dean were as devastated as he was, he didn’t need them to hear it, too. He finally pulled his hands away, closed his eyes, and breathed for a moment. He ran a hand through his hair, swallowed hard, and looked at the first rock Cas had ever given him, laying on the shelf. It seemed to beg him to go be with Dean and Jack. They needed each other right now. So Sam stood up, his legs gaining new strength.

Dean and Jack were sitting in the kitchen. They were both silent and Sam felt like they were waiting for him. Dean looked blank, shock finally starting to set in. He was sitting across from Jack, his sandwich half eaten and neglected. Jack looked lost, confused. He didn’t know how to be without Castiel. Sam understood the feeling. Sam thought maybe Dean did, too. So he made his way over to Jack and knelt in front of his chair. Sam opened his arms and Jack took refuge in them, finally crying. Sam ignored the wetness on his shirt and chose to focus instead of Dean’s firm hand on his shoulder. There was a silence when he felt Dean kneel next to him and Sam realized that his ears had been ringing for the past hour, but the noise had suddenly stopped.

Loss stayed in the car, waiting for Sam to come again. Devastation took a step back. It stopped laughing, stopped mocking Sam. Devastation remained silent and allowed Sam to grieve. 

The three of them would survive this like they had survived everything else.

**Author's Note:**

> well. F


End file.
